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Telehealth Scales Up During the Pandemic to Offer Patient Care in the Safety of the Home

Hailed for its ability to erase distance between health care providers in cities and patients in rural areas, telehealth has ironically enabled medical care to continue in a time when we all must keep our distance.

Across the country, telehealth use has spiked as providers offer virtual patient visits to ensure medical needs are met while minimizing COVID-19 exposure. Regulatory agencies have loosened some restrictions on telehealth during this crisis, and more and more payers have begun to reimburse for it as they would for any other medical service.

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Designed Antiviral Proteins Inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in the Lab

Computer-designed small proteins have now been shown to protect lab-grown human cells from SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The findings are reported today in Science.

In the experiments, the lead antiviral candidate, named LCB1, rivaled the best-known SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies in its protective actions. LCB1 is currently being evaluated in rodents.

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Scientists Develop Low-Cost Chip to Detect Presence and Quantity of COVID-19 Antibodies

Robust and widespread antibody testing has emerged as a key strategy in the fight against SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. However current testing methods are too inaccurate or too expensive to be feasible on a global scale. But now, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have developed a rapid, reliable and low-cost antibody test.

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Orion Health Secures Place on Emerging Tech Framework

Remote Patient Monitoring solution included on Crown Commercial Services Spark: Technology Innovation Marketplace.

Healthcare organisations now have a simple route to procure personalised monitoring for people living with chronic conditions to address post-Covid care challenges and the population health management agenda.

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Don't Fall for the 'Next Best Action' Trap

15 September, 2020. London, UK.
OKRA has announced a new, free webinar called 'Why Next Best Action is not enough', a panel will discuss the urgent need to move beyond the current trend of adding simplistic or 'dumb' AI tools to sales force dashboards.

These AI tools make sense for managers - they are very easy to apply, inexpensive, and give reps an enhanced view of the market - but in the medium-to-long term will likely cause more harm than good.

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Contact Tracing Apps Unlikely to Contain COVID-19 Spread

Contract tracing apps used to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are unlikely to be effective without proper uptake and support from concurrent control measures, finds a new study by UCL researchers.

The systematic review, published in Lancet Digital Health, shows that evidence around the effectiveness of automated contact tracing systems is currently very limited, and

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Internet Searches for Anxiety Attacks Take Off During COVID-19

Many health experts are concerned that the COVID-19 pandemic could be having widespread effects on people's mental health, but assessing these concerns is difficult without data.

"Traditional public health surveillance lacks the agility to provide on-demand insights. As a result, when public leaders need real time data to inform their responses to COVID-19's mental health burdens, all that can be mustered is theoretical speculation," said Dr. John W. Ayers who specializes in monitoring the health needs of the public.

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Philips Launches New Innovations to Help People Stay on Top of their Health

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today presented new approaches to health and healthcare, and the shift to health-at-home, at its virtual consumer health press event. Against the backdrop of COVID-19, the need for consumers to stay as healthy as possible is more relevant than ever.

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Anonymized Cell Phone Location Data can Help Monitor COVID-19 Growth Rates

In March 2020, federal officials declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency. Around the same time, most states implemented stay-at-home advisories - to different degrees and at different times. Publicly available cell phone location data - anonymized at the county-level - showed marked reductions in cell phone activity at the workplace and at retail locations, as well as increased activity in residential areas. However, it was not known whether these data correlate with the spread of COVID-19 in a given region.

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Newly Merged CCG Expands Tech Support to Improve Practice Prescribing

Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group to support prescribers to improve the quality and safety of prescribing through deploying prescribing decision technology FDB OptimiseRx.

A newly merged clinical commissioning group responsible for planning and buying local health services for more than a million patients, has signed a new agreement to support primary care prescribers to improve quality and patient safety.

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